Coupling substrates or intermediate substrates are also called “interposers” and can connect semiconductor components or semiconductor chips stacked one above another. These “interposers” are based in part on a flat conductor leadframe which accommodates a plurality of coupling substrates arranged in strips and provides a metal cross section which imparts to the flat conductor leadframe a sufficient stability for a self-supporting structure. The semiconductor chips are fixed to the flat conductor leadframe via bonding wires or flip-chip contacts, which leads to failures, particularly when such semiconductor components are packed to form semiconductor stacks or semiconductor modules.
If the semiconductor components to be stacked are based on a flat conductor construction of this type, or on a construction with a rewiring substrate, then the central regions are occupied by semiconductor chips and the stacked components can be interconnected only via the edge regions of the components to be stacked. Consequently, the arrangement pattern for external contacts, at least of the upper semiconductor component, is constructionally restricted to the edge regions.
Other solutions, such as are known for example from the document DE 101 38 278, propose using flexible films as “interposers.” These have the disadvantage that they have to be areally fixed with a film area on the semiconductor component or the semiconductor chip and are bent semicircularly toward the nearest neighbor in a stack, which increases the risk of a connection interruption caused by microcracks. At the very least this does not result in a stable stack construction, which adversely affects the reliability of the semiconductor module.